FAA's shift in hiring raises concerns

Air traffic controllers are now picked solely from the public, not college programs that the agency fostered

May 27, 2014|By Jon Hilkevitch, Tribune reporter

Christopher Thurlby, 30, is a graduate of the air-traffic control program at Lewis University, seen here on W. 63rd Street at S. Laramie Ave. in Chicago, near Midway Airport and its tower. Thurlby had his sights set on becoming a controller at Midway or O'Hare but a sudden change in the FAA application process derailed his plans. He has spent about $85,000 on his air-traffic control education and under the new FAA hiring policy that is being implemented over the next year he will be too old (31) in October to enter the FAA academy. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

Brittany Powers graduated this month with a college degree that prepared her for a job as an air traffic controller, chasing a dream that began when she was a teenager.

"I was 13 or 14 and our family was driving past O'Hare on our way to Six Flags (amusement park) and I asked my mom what they do up in the tower," said Powers, now 22, of Plainfield.

But the honors student at Lewis University in Romeoville has already been passed over by her prospective employer, the Federal Aviation Administration, solely because of her answers on a new "biographical assessment'' that includes questions about how peers would describe the individual and the age at which the person started to earn money.

It's the result of an abrupt overhaul this year to the FAA's air traffic controller hiring policy, which for almost 25 years gave preferred status to aviation graduates like Powers as well as former military controllers. Now, the FAA is conducting an off-the-street recruiting process for all candidates. It begins with the assessment, which is open to most people with a high school diploma.

FAA officials have defended the policy, saying the assessment is merely the first cut in a rigorous application process and that it gauges traits shown to predict success as a controller. The agency added that the new recruitment policy is necessary to fill thousands of openings in the next five years amid a wave of retirements.

"Improvements were made to enhance decision-making and increase objectivity in the assessment of candidates," FAA spokeswoman Kristie Greco said.

Critics argue that the unproven strategy will cost millions of dollars and could complicate FAA attempts to replenish its workforce, erode passenger safety in the long term and increase travel delays, in part because an influx of aviation novices hired from among the general public would create more work for veteran controllers in an already high-stress job.

"The FAA never reacts quickly to anything, yet they reacted quickly to some perceived problem,'' said Mike Nolan, professor of aviation technology at Purdue University, home to one of 36 FAA-approved air traffic control programs in the U.S.

"If they had told us three years ago that this was coming, I would have told students, 'Don't enroll in a major that is not overly applicable outside of air traffic control,''' Nolan said.

Some experts also suggest that the policy appears quietly aimed at attracting more minorities and women to a workforce that is largely male and white, even though the FAA says the new policy is "blind on the issue of diversity, from start to finish."

Farm system gone

For years, the FAA, hired controller candidates from three primary pools — graduates of schools that teach the FAA-approved Air Traffic Collegiate Training Initiative Program, military veterans and the general public.

The schools traditionally have served as the FAA's farm system, and graduates quickly moved on to more advanced training at an FAA academy in Oklahoma City.

Most fliers are aware that directing airplanes requires precision and permits little margin for error. And on a daily basis a controller's life exacts stress on both body and mind, which is why the FAA requires controllers to retire at age 56, about a decade before the typical retirement age.

The surge in retirements is linked to the 1981 strike by unionized controllers, during which President Ronald Reagan fired the strikers and the FAA hired new controllers. The FAA estimates that during a decadelong period ending this year, 11,000 of those replacement controllers will have left their jobs.

Another staffing challenge is the rate of controller failure, or washout, which can exceed 50 percent in some of the more challenging air traffic facilities like the control tower at O'Hare International Airport, according to FAA records.

College candidates scramble

The FAA has announced plans to hire more than 6,600 controllers over the next five years to keep pace with expected attrition and to handle projected increases in flights.

The policy switch related to that hiring push has left about 3,500 aviation school air traffic graduates who have invested time and money scrambling to get in line with job hunters from among the general public for vacant FAA controller candidate positions.

Powers was among those graduates of FAA-approved programs at schools including Purdue, Lewis, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and the University of North Dakota who have received "NOT eligible'' emails from the FAA, based on their responses to the biographical assessment.

She says she plans on reapplying with the FAA down the road, but older air traffic control graduates don't have the luxury of time.

FAA policy prohibits the hiring of applicants who are 31 or older because the agency would like to get at least 25 years of service out of controllers before they are required to hang up their headsets at 56.